The Time For Change
by CarnagexElite
Summary: Homeless, jobless, and caught in the middle of a bank robbery, I wait for the eternal darkness of death. But when I awake in a bright room after being shot to death, i'm on the verge of panic. Even more so when I find i'm wrapped in a bundle of blankets while held in the arms of a strange woman. A new life awaits, but the traumas of a past life can have far-reaching effects.
1. Chapter 1

The Time For Change

Prologue

Hey everyone, Carnage here, this is just a prologue to an idea of mine to see how it is received, I might update depending on how this goes, but I do have another story in progress, so don't worry if I don't update. I will at the least come back to this story however.

As always, I don't own Naruto.

xxxx

I was just your average eighteen year old guy. Average grades, average hobbies, etc. However, I was without a girlfriend, jobless, and soon to be homeless too. I had had a rather sheltered life and as such had trouble accepting responsibility for anything, wanting to spend all my time watching anime and playing video games.

I had around £200 left in the bank, which was where I was standing at the moment. I looked around lazily, wanting to get this over and done with as fast as possible. I didn't want to declare bankruptcy, but I really had to or would end up living on the streets, begging for money at Liverpool Street Station or something.

I flinched when a loud bang echoed through the bank, and I looked at a guy who had a pistol in his hand, and was just pulling a hood up and some shades on. However, I got a glimpse of his face, which he noticed.

_Oh fuck_ was the only thought I had. No life flashing before my eyes, no begging or crying or laughing hysterically. Nothing. I felt nothing.

But I didn't die straight away. The guy decided to start torturing me, probably as an example to everyone else there. The first flash of pain came from my right leg. I looked down to see the blood gushing out of the hole in my leg. Then the same happened to the left leg. I was starting to hyperventilate.

Then he shot me in the stomach. Now that fucking hurt. It was more pain than I had ever felt before, it was excruciating, and then the pain from my legs hit, and I fell to the floor screaming, thrashing in my own blood from the pain.

He shot me twice more, once in each shoulder, and I felt my arms go limp beside me. My mind was starting to go numb from the pain, and I looked up blearily to see the bank robber standing over me. The gun was pointing right at my heart.

He fired.

I died.

And then I woke up. _What the fuck_.

I looked up to see a woman that I didn't know smiling down at me. _Wait a minute, smiling down at me. What the hell is going on?_ I looked around, and felt myself wrapped up in something soft, and I was somehow being held in the woman's arms.

I looked up and nearly blanched. Standing next to the bed was _Itachi Uchiha!_ I was seriously questioning my sanity when I heard the woman speak.

"Hey Itachi, I think he wants to meet you," she cooed, and Itachi leant over to get a better look at me. I glanced back and forth between the two of them, then looked down to see the bundle I was wrapped in, as well as another bundle, with a shock of black hair in the shape of a duck's arse.

I looked up again at the woman. "Makkusu, say hello to your brothers, Itachi and Sasuke," she said sweetly, smiling the whole time.

I began to hyperventilate, the memories of the pain of being shot in my world as an adult still fresh in my mind, phantom pains shooting through my body. Then there was the fact that I was now apparently a baby named Makkusu Uchiha, twin brother to Sasuke and younger brother to Itachi. I had been killed and was now a child in the Naruto universe.

The trauma was too much for me, and I heard machines beeping along with the woman who must be my mother shouting worriedly. A man who must have been a doctor rushed in and took me to an oxygen chamber. I closed my eyes and fainted.

xxxx

I woke up sometime later, and could feel that I was once again in the arms of my 'mum'. I was surprised to hear her talking with Itachi, and even more so once I realised that they were actually talking English and not Japanese. Oh well, easier for me.

"I don't know what happened mother. Like I said, one moment he was perfectly calm and the next he started hyperventilating and going into shock."

"I just don't know what's going on, he was perfectly quiet when he was born, that was strange in itself I suppose. I was so happy when they said he was going to be ok."

"I know mother, and don't worry about it happening again. I'm here, the doctors are here, Sasuke is perfectly healthy and now Makkusu is sleeping soundly."

"Yeah, I suppose you're right as always. You're so grown up for a seven year old."

"Mum, I think he's waking up."

I slowly turned my head towards where I heard my mum's voice coming from. That was so weird, thinking of someone who was effectively a complete stranger as my mum.

I slowly, oh so slowly, opened my eyes. My mother gasped. "Oh my god Itachi, look, LOOK, he's already activated his Sharingan!" I noticed that her face seemed a lot sharper than it had last time, and realised that the stress of waking up as a baby in a world I thought fictional after being shot multiple times and tortured before dying was reason enough for the Sharingan to activate, which only did so in times of duress.

I took a moment to think about that, ignoring the fact that Itachi had taken me and was inspecting my eyes extremely closely. I was a fucking _Uchiha_ of all people. That in itself was pretty damn cool, I mean the Sharingan was overpowered as fuck, but come on, the aggro that I knew came with it was totally not worth it.

"He has one tomoe in each eye mother, however, being a newborn I doubt Makkusu knows how to shut them off," Itachi said, already sounding like an adult at the mere age of seven.

"Ok then, give him here and go and call a Hyuuga to look at his chakra pathways. If he can support them being on all the time for a while then we will leave it be, but if not then we will have to cover his eyes to keep him from using them."

I tried to talk, seeing as I knew English, but the sound came out garbled. Apparently I had to go through all the normal motions for babies, only with the consciousness of an eighteen year old. This was going to be tiresome.

xxxx

We went home three days later. Luckily, it had been deemed safe for me to keep my Sharingan activated, though I quickly learned how to such it off anyway, though I passed it off as it deactivating on its own in my sleep.

When we got home, Fugaku Uchiha inspected me. _Oh shit_ I thought. I had forgotten that the man who led the Uchiha's coup was now technically my father. That was some fucked up shit right there. If only my new family could hear my thoughts.

Fugaku's interest was obvious. A child activating a Sharingan just after birth was unheard of, not even Madara had done that, something I learned from listening to Fugaku and my mum. Mikoto, which was my mum's name, I had no trouble thinking of as my mum. She seemed sweet and kind, caring and affectionate, and I had no such reservations against thinking of Itachi as my brother for the same reasons. Sasuke I still had to decide about.

Though I suspected my new brain chemistry also had something to do with it.

Fugaku though, I refused to think of him as my father, both due to what I knew he would eventually do, and because he only seemed to care for me because of my activating the Sharingan, my power.

I dealt with my new life. I shouldn't have been able to, but I was stuck there as 'Makkusu Uchiha', and there was nothing that was going to change that. So I had to deal with it. I pushed everything I could out of my head, intent on building a new life.

I was on the verge of ruin back on Earth, and dead, but this was a second chance, and damned if I wasn't going to use it. Plus, being a ninja was going to be _fucking awesome_.

xxxx

A/N: So let me know what you think. Should I split my time between this and my other story, focus on this, or focus on my first story before continuing this one? As always, read, review, follow and favourite. :D


	2. Chapter 2

The Time For Change

Chapter 1: Baby Steps

Well not many readers so far, but initial feedback is very positive so I'm going to continue this along with my other story Instinctual Release (look it up ;D) at least for a few chapters, just to see what happens.

As always, Naruto remains firmly outside of the sphere I call 'my possessions'. I do own the OC however, the main protagonist.

xxxx

Adjustment was hard. Very hard. I needed a top notch professional psychiatrist to sort out the shit in my head. However, to everyone else I was only a month old, and due to my physical brain, I was unable to speak or walk.

It was frustrating, but with a new brain I had to redevelop my language centre and 'calibrate' my cerebellum, all in a new body, where my consciousness was trying to impress itself.

In some ways it made me realise just how little control I had over myself. The urge to cry when I was hungry was very strong, though I still didn't, and my feelings were quickly developing into what one would consider normal for a family. I found myself inadvertently relaxing in Mikoto's and Itachi's embraces.

Don't even get me started on the results of my being hungry. I was switching to bottled formula as soon as possible. And I never wanted to see another nappy again.

From what I overheard of the conversations when other family members came to visit, the most frequent of which was Shisui, _that was just plain weird_, they thought I was a genius among geniuses. I reckoned that it was probably due to the fact that I was an eighteen year old in reality.

The first month of my new life passed in this manner. I was slowly coming to terms with everything, and was getting to the point that I was able to think about the future and where exactly I was. My first mistake was assuming that this was the exact Naruto universe.

Everything looked and sounded like it did in the anime, so I knew that some things would be the same, but I was born as an Uchiha and Sasuke's brother at that, which I know did not happen in the actual show, so already things had been changed.

What I realised was that because of this I couldn't accurately predict any events that should happen in the future. I was sure there were some things that were implicit to this universe, so I assumed that I knew some of what was going to happen.

My mere presence was going to royally fuck things up though, and so I resolved that I wouldn't just skate by on supposed knowledge of the future. No, when the time came, I was going to throw myself into shinobi training wholeheartedly.

The fact that my Sharingan was already activated helped, and it wasn't like I was going to have much choice being born into the head family of the clan of the Uchiha.

The irony wasn't lost on me considering how much of a lazy bum I had been in my previous life, but I attributed to the fact that being a shinobi was going to be so much more interesting than anything back in my old world, and I now had the blood of one of the strongest shinobi clans in existence, and I already had my Sharingan.

But for the moment I was still a fucking baby!

xxxx

Two months after me and Sasuke were born; tragedy struck the village of Konoha. I had never actually caught the date of mine and Sasuke's birth, so I had no idea when it was going to happen.

Turns out now.

The first thing that alerted me was shouting in the distance. I listened intently to what I could hear, until I heard one word that chilled my blood. _Kyuubi!_ I let out a startled cry as the sound of something crashing, breaking and falling all at the same time seemed much too close for comfort. I heard shouts at what I could only imagine was a building being taken down just outside the compound.

There was a rumble as something huge smashed a fist into the ground out in the village. The cries were getting louder, and Sasuke woke up next to me, looking as startled as I felt for a second. Then the area was awash with killing intent, so oppressive it felt like my lungs were going to collapse.

I fought the urge to cry and began to shake uncontrollably in fear, though I felt for my brother next to me as he started crying, not yet having the mental faculties to subdue such urges.

Sasuke's cries slowed down and I started shaking less as mum came into the room. She was scared, I could tell, but she was putting on a brave face for me and Sasuke, which actually helped a little bit.

"Shhh, don't cry Sasuke, it's all going to be okay, mummy's here, okay now, shhhh..." She said comfortingly, then turned to me and just smiled sweetly. I hadn't cried once in my entire (new) life and I planned on keeping it that way.

She grabbed us and left the room we were in and ran downstairs. Itachi was waiting for us by the front door, as Fugaku had probably gone to help fight the demon currently raging throughout the village.

I knew it was the guy in the mask controlling the Kyuubi, but I hadn't watched Naruto very avidly, skipping most of the fillers, so I didn't know a lot of back story, plus I watched it between other animes, so I could barely remember what I had watched. I realised that even had I decided I did know the future, fat lot of good it would do me if I couldn't remember it.

I came out of my own thoughts and found that we were running through the streets, Sasuke in mum's arms while Itachi held me. They both sprinted towards the Hokage monument with us, probably to evacuation shelters.

When we got to them, there were a lot of people just standing around looking dazed, while others were desperately trying to get the shinobi on watch to tell them what was going on or to report about a certain person.

Itachi handed me back to mum, who sat down in a corner with us, while Itachi stood at the entrance, his own Sharingan eyes staring out into the night, mum trying to rock us back to sleep. There was no way I was going to sleep though. The best I could do was just wait out what was happening, and grip onto mum for dear life as tremors of terror racked my body and Sasuke cried next to me.

xxxx

About a week after the incident, I had a nightmare. I figured I would have got them eventually, and it seems the Kyuubi's attack had triggered them.

I was lying on my bed, back in my old world. I could see the Metallica poster I had had since I was fifteen on the wall. I lived in a one bedroom apartment in Exeter, so the room wasn't massive, just enough room for my bed, my poster and a TV.

I turned my head towards the door and saw my parents, my old parents, standing in the doorway, looking at me with eyes filled with sadness and disappointment. I tried to say something to them, to lift my hand and wipe away my mother's tears, but I couldn't move, or breathe.

I wanted to hyperventilate but there was no oxygen, and as I struggled furiously against my paralysis my parents came closer and started taking bits of me out of the room, grabbing my arms and legs and just pulling them off like a doll.

I opened my mouth to scream as my father's hands reached towards my eyes, fingers ready to pluck them out like vultures, coming closer and closer...

"Makkusu! MAKKUSU!" My mum shouted me out of it, and I opened my eyes to see terrified ones looking into mine, and the sound of crying reaching my ears. She picked me up and hugged me to her, my face buried into her neck as I shook from the memories of the dream. It was absolutely horrifying.

"Don't worry, I'm here baby, it was just a nightmare so there's no need to be afraid.." she said, before she pulled me up and looked straight into my Sharingan eyes, which I had taken to leaving on as much as possible now.

After the very comforting hug, mum put me to bed, where I drifted off peacefully, the nightmare not coming back that night. However, it returned the next night, and I had the same nightmare at least twice a week from then on.

Every time I did have it though, mum would come into the room and wake me up, soothing me and calming Sasuke down, who would invariably wake and cry to the sounds of my screams.

I sometimes thought about how I responded to my mum, and the fact that I even called her mum. I felt like I was intruding on someone that didn't belong to me, taking attention away from Sasuke. I was already being hailed as a genius, and it looked like Sasuke was going to be held back behind two shadows.

Whenever the nightmare hit though, all of those thoughts went out the window, and I was grateful for my mum coming and comforting me every time it happened, and I unashamedly fell asleep in her arms.

xxxx

One year old. I had finally managed to say my first word three months ago, and once that hurdle was taken care of, my ability to communicate finally flourished. Within three months I was now able to string together sentences and speak coherently, greatly impressing everyone in the clan (except Fugaku).

Me and Sasuke were sitting in high back chairs staring at an absolutely _massive_ birthday cake, with two big separate number one candles on either side of the cake staring at us. Everyone finished the birthday song, and I heard mum telling me and Sasuke to blow out our candles.

I took in a huge (for me) gulp of air, held it for a second, and then blew as hard as I could. A little too hard, if the half of my cake that had decided fly away and land on the faces of everyone staring at me was anything to judge by. I couldn't help laughing when I looked at Itachi to find him slyly wiping some of the cake off his face and eating it.

Sasuke and mum just looked at me with wide eyes, before mum began chuckling, setting off Sasuke to giggle, and then everyone else to laugh as well, joining me in my mirth. Although there were a few curious glances in there a well.

Everyone stopped laughing very quickly when a sound that no one had ever heard before permeated the room. Sasuke looked at everyone, then stared at me with wide eyes.

"Makkusu," he said, before sporting a grin wide enough to put Naruto to shame.

Needless to say, I found myself loving Sasuke like family as well. I chose not to think about what this could mean for the future, instead simply feeling happiness well up inside me. I couldn't help but view Sasuke as my brother, both because of this, and because he technically was.

And damn it I would do my best to be the best twin brother I could.

xxxx

Year two came around much too quickly for my liking. I was now able to walk around on my own, which Sasuke also picked up a little while after me. We had both been put down by mum in a food shop.

I had absent-mindedly gone towards a shelf with sweets on it, not realising that I had gotten up and walked over to it, until I heard mum shout. I looked round to see her looking down at where I should have been by her leg, then saw her smile when she turned around and saw me standing on my own two feet.

However, I wasn't able to stop my own smile from faltering slightly at her next words, despite my convictions, as some of my old inhibitions towards effort surfaced.

"Well, looks like someone is going to be ready for shinobi training soon, huh?"

xxxx

A/N: Well that was a bitch to write. So from the next chapter onwards this is going to be purely first person present, so instead of 'I smiled at him' it will be 'I smile at him,' simply because some of the stuff I have planned will make more sense like that.

Also, I know this seemed like a bit of a filler chapter this early on, but I needed to make relationships clear and show how advanced Makkusu is due to being older mentally. Next chapter is shinobi training, so look forward to it.

I hope you all enjoy the chapter


	3. Chapter 3

The Time For Change

Chapter 2: Training Begins

A/N: Sorry it took so long for another chapter, but I hit a focal point in my other story and wanted to get that done. I have also changed my mind on the style again and have decided to leave it like it was, otherwise im just gonna get confused.

xxxx

Technically, mentally, I was twenty one years old. Physically, I was three, and I was getting the crap beaten out of me. Me and Sasuke had started training the moment we had turned three, like literally the day after our third birthday. I thought from what I remembered of the anime that training didn't start till the academy at age six, but it seems different for clans, and Itachi hits hard, no matter how much he loves us.

As it was, six months of training had gone by in a flash, and I found out how much of an advantage it was to be an adult mentally. I grasped the concepts of what we were taught easily, I was able to follow through and even improvise entire taijutsu katas, I could read situations quickly, overall my mental faculties ensured that anything to do with actually thinking came rather easily.

I found something else as well. Chakra is the mixture of physical and mental energies, and the amount available to you is dependent on how much of each you possess. Your control is determined by how easily you can mould the mental and physical together, and the right amounts of them too. Too much of one or the other at a young age does wonders for your capacity but terrors for your control.

Being mentally twenty one and physically three, my capacity was through the roof, higher than even Naruto's I expected at the moment, but my control was beyond difficult. But that's what practice is for.

And I spent a lot of time practicing. It is amazing how motivated you become to train when everyone you know is a shinobi and there are no video games to play or animes to watch. Since my mental faculties were so advanced, I spent every waking moment training my body or training my chakra control, though I didn't neglect reading up on things either.

Unfortunately, this made several things happen. Within the clan, I became almost like a celebrity. Always training my body, control or reading up on academy level shinobi information, I had unparalleled focus for a three year old, and quickly shot ahead of Sasuke and even where Itachi was at my age.

This meant that I was hailed as a genius, which in a respect I was, but that didn't concern me. Itachi, who I loved dearly, often took over mine and Sasuke's training, being a true prodigy himself, and I enjoyed every moment of it. Fugaku however, did not seem to appreciate it.

Outside of the clan, things were very different. I think the arrogant nature of the other Uchiha meant that they bragged about me non-stop to the other mothers. I was surprised at the level of animosity directed towards me, but I was different. I had no friends because of my training, Sasuke's friends wouldn't interact with me and the other kids picked up on what their mothers felt about me, though none of them tried anything.

My personality didn't help either. I found others my age dull because I was so advanced, and this translated into me being quiet, which (I'm sure it must be genetic) unfortunately led to me perfecting the classic Uchiha indifference and 'hn' became my go to response for most things. I never broke out of it.

Things picked up however, on one of the many times mum forced me and Sasuke to go to the park to (try to) interact with the others. Sasuke had his own group of friends and went off immediately, while I stayed on the bench and read about taijutsu stances taught in the academy while the other mums chatted.

It was during this one particular outing that I sensed something bothering me. I looked up from my book, Sharingan activated almost permanently, and immediately spotted a mop of blond hair moving backwards and forwards dejectedly on a swing.

I'm not sure what drew me to Naruto. I hadn't seen him before this, and it wasn't because I knew about him from the show in my old world. There was just something about him, and I couldn't bring myself to look away from the ball of loneliness that he was at the moment.

Before I knew it I found myself on my feet walking over to Naruto, much to the surprise of my mum, as I had never shown any interest in anyone who wasn't an adult other than Sasuke and Itachi. I plodded over the sand and stood in front of him.

He didn't look up immediately, instead bringing it up slowly. When he looked at me his large blue eyes fixed on my narrowed red ones. Neither of us said anything, opting to try and outstare each other. Three minutes later neither of us had yet blinked. I saw mum grabbing Sasuke and the other mums milling about out the corner of my eye.

"Same time next week," I said to Naruto, who just looked at me surprised that anyone would want to see him again after meeting him once. He nodded slowly, and I moved away, still staring, and then turned when I reached the edge of the sand and then walked over to where mum and Sasuke were waiting for me.

Mum just looked at me amused, and I was glad that she didn't try and prejudice me against Naruto, not that she could have. Sasuke just stared at me with a bored expression. "Well Makkusu honey, what happened with that boy over there then?" Mum asked sweetly, still talking to me like a three year old even it was obvious I was much more mature than that.

I looked up at her and smirked, the small smile coming easily to my face. "I think... I just made a friend."

xxxx

I found it surprisingly hard to concentrate that next week, though I still did better than I should have done. I found that with all of the training I had been doing at such a young age and the fact that I was so young, my stamina, speed and strength were through the roof for my age, so dropping a little from my normal routine didn't do any harm.

It made me think about the fact that I was learning to kill people at the age of three for goodness sake, but I had to remember that this was not only the shinobi world, this was the Uchiha clan, and I was a genius within the clan, so it would be weird to not see me training my arse off. Also I would have been extremely bored.

A week later and I couldn't wait to go to the park again to meet Naruto. I reasoned it was because of watching him in the anime and knowing he would be lonely, or that he had the Kyuubi and would therefore be a powerful friend, but the truth was I actually wanted a friend my own age and Naruto was just about inventive enough to challenge me intellectually. Plus I wondered what a cultivation of his fantastic mind at an early age would result in later.

This was definitely something which needed to change sooner rather than later.

So when we were getting ready to leave, I was already dressed and in my sandals and waiting by the door by the time Sasuke had walked out of his bedroom. Itachi and Fugaku were out on missions, so it was just me, mum and Sasuke that day. Mum just gave me a knowing glance, to which I smiled, and Sasuke decided to just ignore how crazy I was.

Sometimes I envied Sasuke. I loved my mum and brothers immensely, more so than anyone else, but the fact of the matter was even though I was so young they all felt like I could take care of myself, a great Uchiha prodigy, mature beyond his years. I sometimes missed the sheer amount of affection that mum and Itachi placed on Sasuke because he was normal. I also did as much as I could to include Sasuke in things with me, because I didn't want there to be animosity between the two of us because of my being so much better than him.

Therefore the chance for a friend my age, no matter who, was intoxicating. I was the first person out the door when everyone else was ready.

xxxx

There he was, sitting on that same swing in the park, a noticeable radius of emptiness where the other kids avoided him. Not caring about that, I marched over to him and stood in front of him like before.

"My name is Makkusu Uchiha, what's yours?" I asked, trying my best to make it sound like I didn't already know his name. He grinned up at me then, that famous foxy grin, and I couldn't help but feel the corners of my mouth twitch upwards in response.

"My name is Naruto Uzumaki, and one day I'm going to be hokage, believe it!" He said enthusiastically, causing me to actually grin in response. We stood there grinning for a second, and then I got an idea.

"Hey Naruto, did you know that with help you can swing so far up on the swing that you go all the way round?" I asked him. I don't know why that idea popped into my head, but he seemed to look at the swing in a different light all of a sudden, which was quite amusing to see.

"Really? All right let's do it Makkusu!" With that he climbed on the swing and I got behind him and started him off. He slowly swung round higher and higher until he was hitting horizontal.

"Ok Naruto this is it!" I shouted at him. My mum had seen what we were going to do, and started towards us, but she wasn't fast enough. When Naruto reached horizontal backwards, I jumped up and grabbed the seat, then swung him down with all of the force I could muster.

He rocketed round and shot past the horizontal until he hit vertical. I could hear him laughing, but for one agonising moment it seemed like I hadn't put enough in. A moment later however the swing came down normally, and Naruto leapt off at the apex of the next swing, landed lightly on his feet.

I could see that mum still had that look on her face that meant that I was going to get a talking to, but before she got to me Naruto ran up to me and latched onto my shoulders, shouting about how much fun that was. I smirked at him, then looked at my mum.

She held my Sharingan gaze for a moment, but then smiled at me while shaking her head, and wandered back towards the other mums, who had been looking at us like we were crazy.

After me and Naruto spent another few moments laughing at how much fun (frightening and adrenalin pumping; I never would have done something like that in my old world) that was, some other kids decided that they didn't like us.

I hadn't watched all of Naruto: Shippuden, but I did watch most of Naruto, so I recognised these three as the kids a few years older than Naruto and me, who would often bully him at the academy. It seems that started a lot earlier than I thought it did. As it was they strode over to us confidently.

"Well well, look at these two, the village pariah and a know-it-all Uchiha _genius_, the only two in the village with no friends. Well, sorry to break up your little bonding session freaks, but you monsters need to be taught that you're not allowed friends, not even each other." The main guy was big, at least for a six year old, but made the stupid mistake of thinking he could hurt me.

I glanced at Naruto and caught his eye then glanced at the swing and winked at him, none of which the older kid caught. Naruto and I went back to the swing just before he reached us. I jumped onto the swing so that it immediately swung right up backwards, and then Naruto did what I did before, putting his whole weight on it to swing me round.

I did the whole three sixty on my feet, and when the swing was at the right point I jumped off of it, feet first, and kicked the older kid in the stomach so hard that he threw up and fell on the floor almost unconscious. His two friends were running towards us side by side, anger etched onto their faces.

Naruto had jumped onto the swing the moment I left it, giving it enough speed for another rotation, but instead of shooting off level he went up as he jumped off. I watched as he sailed over me and kicked the two other kids in the face, a foot a piece, and then laughed as they crumpled to the ground. Me and Naruto ran up to each other and high fived.

The leader was just starting to get up, so me and Naruto walked up to him and planted a foot each on his chest, driving him back to the floor. At the same time, Naruto and I shouted at him, "NO ONE CALLS US MONSTERS!" Then, perfectly in sync, we kicked him in the chin, knocking him out cold. We high fived again.

After that we had to sit and listen as the parents of the children rushed over and cooed over their babies being hurt, but when I glanced at my mum to see how angry she was, she just had an amused smirk and her eyes were twinkling with mirth. The other mothers rounded on me and Naruto and started calling us monsters and freaks and demons, much like their sons had.

After a moment mum got up and walked over, standing in front of Naruto and I, who looked stunned that someone, especially an adult, was sticking up for him. The other women quietened down as my mum released some killing intent.

"Listen to me closely, what you just witnessed is the difference between civilian kids who think they can be shinobi, and the sons of shinobi who actually deserve the title. If your children can't take a beating, even from a couple of three year olds, then I have to wonder what they are doing at the academy." I was never more proud of having Mikoto Uchiha as my mother than that moment.

Once that scene was finished, I noticed that everyone was getting ready to go home, and Naruto was just hanging his head, not looking at everyone's parents. Before mum called Sasuke over, I tugged on her trousers to get her attention.

"Hey mum, is it ok if Naruto comes over for dinner?" Naruto's head snapped up with a look of pure shock on his face, something which actually tugged at my heart a little bit. Back in my old world I could never stand films where a child got hurt or abused, and it seemed that I carried that over. Seeing Naruto so delighted at simply being asked to come to dinner was definitely not something I wanted to see again.

Mum appeared to have caught my line of thinking, as she smiled warmly and turned to Naruto. "Well Naruto dear, would you like to come to dinner with us?" He instantly nodded his head vigorously, apparently too happy to actually form any words.

Sasuke ran over just then to see me standing next to Naruto and said, "Yay, Makkusu finally made a friend!" Mum picked Sasuke up and put him on her shoulders so Naruto and I could walk together behind her, and we set off. Although, with my Sharingan eyes, I was just able to see Naruto's face out of the corner of my eye, and he was looking at me wondering what Sasuke meant.

xxxx

As we walked in the front door, Naruto was shaking like a leaf, probably out of nerves. He turned to me with a look of horror, and managed to get a question out, surprisingly. "Erm... Makkusu... err... is there err... anything, you know, special... that I err... need to do?" I looked at him questioningly for a second, but then smiled at him, causing him to settle down slightly.

"Well yeah, but all you have to do is remember to take your shoes off before you walk on the wooden floor, don't swear or shout, and try not to throw your food across the room, although that last one is more to stop food fights than anything," I said with a faraway look on my face. That had actually happened once when both mum and Fugaku were gone on missions, and Itachi got in the hospital. It was one of the few times that mum had been angry at us, though for some reason Fugaku didn't really seem to care.

"Oh ok, well that sounds easy enough," Naruto said with a relieved look on his face, as he stepped onto the floor barefoot. I followed and we waited while mum prepared the dinner she had set up before we left for the park, throwing in a couple of things for the extra guest.

All in all it was a pretty good dinner, with Naruto spending most of his time asking what the different foods were, and then trying them whether they sounded good or not, much to the amusement of myself and the others. However, just before he left, Naruto finally asked the question that had been bugging him since the playground.

"Makkusu, I don't want to be rude, but why did those kids call you a freak and a monster as well? Why did your brother say that you _finally_ had a friend?" He looked so nervous it was almost cute. I looked at my mum and she nodded at me to say that it's ok. I just hoped Naruto wouldn't take it the wrong way.

"Naruto, I'm not bragging, but I'm really really smart, and I spend almost all of my time training to be a shinobi, and my Sharingan is almost permanently activated. Not a lot of people even see the Sharingan, so to display all the time makes people think that I'm possessed or something," I said miserably. Naruto looked at me with his face scrunched up a bit.

"So what you're saying is other kids don't like you because of your eyes, and also because you're better than them?" I nodded with a downcast air, thinking that Naruto was going to reject me because of what I had said. However, I was pleasantly surprised.

"Well that's really stupid. Surely you'd want to be friends with someone better than you because then they can help you!" I looked at him with the closest to tears an Uchiha is likely to get and smiled widely at him. Mum and Sasuke were smiling as well, and I was really happy. I may have been twenty one mentally, but physically I was still three, and having a friend felt great.

xxxx

Mine and Naruto's friendship blossomed over the years between that day and entrance into the academy. Although, him and Sasuke had a strange relationship that was oddly reminiscent of what they were like in the anime, but it was a lot less of a rivalry in being shinobi, and more of a rivalry in who came up with the best pranks.

I was more often than not dragged into both of their hair brained schemes, if only to use my superior intellect to come up with slightly better plans. In those three years before we entered the academy we must have driven my mum mad.

Despite my genius, and the fact that I still trained non-stop, Fugaku lost interest in me after I started to participate in the pranks, although Itachi seemed to love the fact that me and Sasuke did such things, always questioning us about them and then refusing our pleas to train with us.

He had become ANBU recently and had a lot less time to spend with us. I knew what that meant, and I feared for what was going to happen in the future, but I prayed that things would go differently this time.

xxxx

Well that's chapter three of this story, again sorry to those followers about the slow updates, but my first story requires more of my time. Also, exams soon, so updates may become even more sparse, but after that its holidays, so look forward to it.


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